The Morning
by anni
Summary: Jackie wakes up to Christmas morning...


Title: The Morning Author: Anni Email: asleeper@email.arizona.edu Rating: PG-13 Summary: Jackie wakes up on Christmas morning. Notes: Dia wanted a sweet J/H Christmas fic, though I'm not quite sure this fits the bill. I hope you like it though, babe!  
  
There is a string of lights hanging across the length of Steven's bedroom in the Forman's basement. It's that kind with the really big and different colored bulbs. kind of like a really tacky rainbow. Mrs. Forman put it up because she thought that Steven needed a little Christmas cheer in his life. This house already has one Grinch in Mr. Forman. It doesn't need another.  
  
Anyway, the line of orange, green, red, and blue lights is interrupted by one space that must have burnt out. If memory serves me correctly, it was a blue bulb. I like the blue bulbs.  
  
It's morning now, though I'm not sure how it is that I know that. Steven doesn't have an alarm clock because he says 'what is time, really? Just another one of those restrictions that blah blah blah' or something like that. I listen when he talks; I really do. Except when it's boring. Then I do my nails.  
  
His room in the basement doesn't have any windows, so I can't see the winter sunrise, but I'm sure it's morning anyway. Christmas morning.  
  
Christmas morning has always been my favorite morning of the year because I'm me, and I love presents. Even last year, though Daddy was gone, he had left loads of gifts: dresses, make-up, dolls, money. And I had spent hours opening my much-deserved presents and then trying them on and playing with them.  
  
Because that's what Christmas morning is for.  
  
I'm not doing that this Christmas morning, though. Instead, I am lying in a not-even-a-bed that is way too small for two people in a basement that smells slightly of dirty socks, staring at a burnt out blue bulb. Or at least, I think it's a blue bulb. I wish it were pink.  
  
There aren't loads of presents waiting for me this Christmas morning. There's only one.  
  
I told Steven that as my perfect boyfriend, he needed to buy me something nice. and expensive. He said he wasn't going to because he says 'what are presents anyway? Just another one of those expectations that' and more with the blah blah blah, but I snooped around anyway the other day when he was busy watching Little House and I found a box wrapped up in the classified section of last Sunday's newspaper. I tried to play with the tape a little to see if I could tell what was inside, but he must have used a whole roll of packing tape just to make sure that I didn't.  
  
He's such a pain sometimes.  
  
I made him take me to the mall last weekend and I showed him specifically the dress that I wanted. It's pink, which of course he hated. And there were ruffles around the skirt, and that made him roll his eyes even more. But I love that dress, and I want that dress. My daddy would have gotten me that dress.  
  
I know he didn't get me the pink, ruffled dress.  
  
This is Steven, so he probably got me some dirty old shirt of a horrible sounding band that he likes or maybe a tool of some kind. He told me once that every girl should own a wrench because you really never know when you'll need a wrench. I have never needed a wrench.  
  
So anyway, it's Christmas morning, my favorite morning of the year, and I am in a smelly basement staring at what I think is a burnt out blue bulb, wishing that it were a pink bulb, and crossing my fingers for a pink, ruffled dress that I'm sure will turn out to be a not pink, not ruffled wrench.  
  
I keep my eyes trained on that bulb that I can't quite see as I sink further into the thin almost mattress of Steven's cot and let the quiet that Christmas morning has never been wrap around me like Steven's hair arms.  
  
He is lying spooned behind me. His face is buried in my neck, and I can feel warm breath as he inhales and exhales against my jaw. The after smell of his Christmas Eve six pack tickles my nose as it mingles with his scent that has just become a part of the pillowcases.  
  
Steven has a tendency to push toward the middle of the cot while he sleeps, despite the fact that there is barely enough room for both of us in the first place. I have tried kicking him a few times, but he can sleep through practically anything, so it does nothing. The only thing keeping me from tipping over the edge and falling to the cold cement floor is his arm that is locked around my middle, his hand falling on my upper ribcage and curving around the underswell of my breast. Steven is a breast man.  
  
I can feel his entire body pressed against mine, from the solid plane of his chest along my bare back to his crinkly leg hair scratching against my smooth skin as his legs tangle with mine.  
  
This is not what Christmas morning is supposed to be.  
  
There should be presents and ruffles and light bulbs that actually light.  
  
Instead, on this morning, I am clinging to the edge of a cot that is near collapsing no matter what I do, staring at a burnt out maybe blue bulb, wishing it were pink, waiting to open a wrench that should be a pink, ruffled dress.  
  
This isn't Christmas morning and I know I should just try to relax into Steven's arms and go back to sleep, but the morning, whatever this morning is, is too perfect and too beautiful to let go. On this morning, unlike every other favorite morning of the year before, I am happy. 


End file.
